Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
The days of A-list players making it to UFA status are drawing to a close. Those kinds of players now get locked up for the duration of their prime. What you're left with are guys on the wrong side of 32 who have A-list reputations but no longer have A-list game.
The NHL is becoming a draft and develop league. Meaningful trades are rare. Free agency is a way to round out the supporting roles on rosters. That may be disappointing to fans who love trades and imagine quick turnarounds. But it's reality. And it's a league-wide approach, not a Flames thing.
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I'm late, but this is how I view it. It is extremely rare to find a UFA that is a good deal; acquiring a player is guaranteed to have a cost, either a cost of a asset via trade or a dollar cost. At the moment, it makes no sense to give up a current or future asset via trade, so acquisitions were made via UFA. And you almost always pay for a UFA, especially if you are one of the worst teams in the league.
Then you look at the UFA list, quality players are almost always locked up to league max's for 8 years, but at the current stage of where the Flames are (and hopefully for all time too) it didn't make sense to go out and offer a 8 year contract. So you target the tier 2/3 players, which is where guys like Engelland and Mason Raymond fall in.
Sure, some year's we'll take a gamble on a player and it works out (Tanguay, Olli) and this year, that gamble was Setoguchi, but that didn't work out. No cost through asset, minimal cost through dollars... hard to complain.
To me, I get that people look at the players that Treliving acquired via UFA and are concerned (and Bollig too)... but from the org POV, I get that they want to create competition and let their prospects develop and force them to win positions, so they don't fall into the failures of what the Oilers do. Given that there are no expectations for the team to be competitive this year, IMO its not a big deal that his Engelland, Raymond, Diaz and Bollig are struggling.